The Latest Interview from Reese Jones and NTHE Question #4

August 5, 2014

Bugging Out To the Southern Hemisphere | Climate Collapse Series | Video 14

by Reese Jones

As the shadow of climate change approaches the Northern Hemisphere, many of us may wish to escape to a verdant, idyllic paradise where the sun shines tenderly, constant waters flow gently and flourishing gardens overflow with sweet abundance — a place where the grape is grown; where honeybees, native flora and fauna still thrive and friendly natives flash welcoming smiles, ever grateful to accept Northern dollars whilst providing the privileged lifestyle those dollars demand.

In our hearts, we may ironically wish for a place of our own undevising; a place relatively untouched by industrialized man.

These days, there are still tropical resorts and unspoiled regions that rather fill the bill. But, most are relatively close to the Northern hemisphere with their vulnerable ecosystems that are increasingly subject to tempests, tossings, heat, flood and drought. Existing on a fragile edge, they remain dependent upon ships, planes or trucks requiring reasonably priced fossil fuels to provide the conveniences and luxuries tourists and Northern migrants expect.

In the highest reaches of Columbia in South America, mountain tops are fast becoming dry wastelands devoid of snowpack. Brazil is experiencing heat waves and drought. The ocean waters off the coast of Ecuador seem to be absorbing ever-increasing heat from the warming atmosphere.

Australia and New Zealand have been experiencing cold, heat, drought, fire, earthquakes and floods. South Africa is not immune to unseasonable cold and other anomalies from fires, floods as well, and now, earthquakes. Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay have their own environmental and climate-related complications. As for popular Central America, it’s close proximity to the Northern Hemisphere may render it moot as a successful bug-out location.

So, where is the best place to migrate to, in Southern regions? Is it even a good idea to migrate? How long could the move postpone our extinction? Could we go “Venus?” Are we justified in engaging in “colonialism” once again?

How feasible is moving for the majority of us? Is it even a good idea, given uncertain governments, high cost, unpredictable weather and other unknown, environmental factors? How welcoming will the countries of the Southern climes be and for how long? How safe will the last vestiges of safe, human habitat remain from the onslaught of foreign military invasion with their armies, ships, weapons and fuel to spare?

What are we really willing to do to survive 10 to 15 years longer than the rest?

There is much to think about. But, no matter what we decide to do, we have at this moment the opportunity to take a breath and remember, as Dr. McPherson says, to “live what we love.”

For many of us, this may entail finding our own inner peace wherever we are, drawing close to our loved ones and our community, cherishing each moment as we learn to shelter, right at home. What will you choose to do?

**

NTHE Question #4

How many human deaths per year will occur between now and extinction in 2030 or so? Or perhaps asked in another way: What will be the net human population alive per continent at the end of each year from 2015 to 2030? The support for the numbers would obviously have to include some analysis of the causes of the population decline per period and maybe that can be worked into the question.

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McPherson was interviewed by Dan Kinch on 20 June 2014. Read the description and hear the interview here.

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Nature Bats Last joins the airwaves tonight! That’s Tuesday, 5 August 2014 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. McPherson will be joined tonight and every Tuesday by co-host Mike Sliwa for this hour-long show on the Progressive Radio Network. Follow the page and join the group on Facebook.

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Due to an overwhelming number of submissions, essays in this space will appear at the top of the page for only two days. Essays will be intermixed with questions for discussion, of which today’s is the first. If you could ask a single question concerning near-term human extinction, knowing that everyone at NBL will ponder and then offer an opinion, what form would that question take? If you’re willing, please send your question to guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com. It will be posted anonymously for commentary in place of an essay.

Find and join the Near-Term Human Extinction Support Group on Facebook here

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If you have registered, or you intend to register, please send an email message to guy.r.mcpherson@gmail.com. Include the online moniker you’d like to use in this space. I’ll approve your registration as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience.

As for how many people dying on a yearly rate due to climate change… such a difficult question. There are millions dying already. But in industrialized countries, perhaps 1000s at first, then 100s of thousands perishing, finally garnering the attention of the press. Will they gloss over it? Will magical, mystical solutions appear? Methane engorgers, volcanic erupters, atmospheric particle dischargers, sunlight deflectors?

I’m brought to mind this cataclysmic climate episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, called The Inner Light, on Scifi TV.

Within a few moments, Picard, ship’s captain, lives a lifetime on a planet gradually being overcome with global warming. The people are a populace of such grace as they confront their inevitable demise.

It may be too fine a point but if we attribute every death on planet earth by starvation to climate change– credible numbers fall around 300000, rather than millions. This is in spite of the fact that there is enough food grown for everyone– and production rates are almost 20% higher than they were 30 years ago. The take-away is that climate change is not yet a big killer– at least in comparison to basic human corruption and greed. . .It may be but it isn’t yet. I in fact expect human greed will remain the big killer for quite some time and may change the timeline in which the climate catastrophe unfolds by some little bit.

Not to be contrary but the NTHE issue is definitely scary enough without adding needless hyperbole–and mistaken assumptions may actually weaken and discredit the message.

According to a Finnish biology professor, accurate measurement statistics show that the Earth’s climate has NOT warmed in 17 years and the warming scenarios provided by climate models have NOT been realized, even if the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at the same time has greatly increased. Long time series also show that similar to the present or warmer periods have often been in the past. In the last hundred years, natural disasters and other extreme events have NOT increased and sea level has NOT changed. Northern Hemisphere snow has remained stable and the current extent of the polar ice does NOT differ from what it was like in the 1930s. Polar bears live better than ever, coral reefs have recovered, etc.. EVERYTHING IS FINE?

You wrote “Otoh let’s not forget that most of the techniques that characterise civilisation- storage of surpluses, bureaucracy, massive edifice-building, etc., are anything but short-termist. Imo just as strong a case could be made for our impending non-viability being due to an excess of ‘long-termism’- always neurotically striving to meet future contingencies- than to a lack of it?”

I maintain that, far more often than not humans did the things you point to because of the short-term, immediate gratification consequences for those involved, NOT out of concern for humans even two or three generations into the future, much less six or seven or ten generations, and not out of concern for other species or a long-term, viable climate and Earth itself. But that remains just my opinion.

How many human deaths per year will occur between now and extinction in 2030 or so?

Given a net global birth rate of 1% pa, reducing a population of 7.2 billion to zero in 16 years requires a death rate of about 450 million per year every year.

However, since such an event could ramp up slowly and ramp up as the event unfolds, we could see a “peak death rate” approaching a thousand million per year just before the end.

WWII killed about 10-12 million per year.

I don’t buy the idea of human extinction on this time frame, however. I think any critter that can rebound from Toba to do this to the world in just 75,000 years is tougher than we can imagine Give me 100 years instead of 15 though, and all bets are off.

From late December 2012, “A report released earlier this year from the climate change watch group DARA estimates that the deaths related to climate change and its chief driver, fossil fuels, were roughly 5 million in 2010.” I strongly suspect the figure is higher today than four years ago.

Shortly after collapse of industrial civilization is complete, there will be no habitat for humans in the interior of large continents. I don’t know how many people live in these areas, but I don’t think the number will exceed zero within a few months post-collapse.

What pattern does the decline in human population follow in maritime regions? I doubt tropical and subtropical regions harbor habitat for humans very long beyond collapse. Wet-bulb temperatures will rise quickly in these areas in the wake of collapse.

And then what? How long do areas such as New Zealand, southern Australia, southern South America, and southern Africa harbor humans? A decade, perhaps bit longer? But not much longer. Without land plants and plankton, there will be no humans.

I love the way people drag out the completely irrelevant Toba event. But comparing contemporary and likely future conditions to Toba is nonsensical. For humans and other large-bodied mammals, Toba was easy. It was cold, and there was abundant habitat for humans and other large mammals. What’s coming will be far different.

But if we accept the DARA report at face value–by throwing everything under the sun that could roughly be construed as related to climate change and or fossil fuels– I don’t see why we wouldn’t just take the next step and accept “human greed and violence” as the root cause of our predicament, not climate change, nor even fossil fuels. Why the residence to that next step? I’m not sure, but I think it’s quite pertinent to the conversation because again the human proclivity for violence has the potential, perhaps sole potential, to radically invalidate many of the NTHE projections. It is only fair that we acknowledge that potentiality.

Slightly tangentially: If one were to mine iron ore and use coal to smelt it one has a choice of making one of several implements with it– say a sword, an axe, or perhaps a shovel. It’s hard to make the case that the sword returns value to the systemic whole, as it’s almost wholly a tool for the use in the service of greed and violence. An axe perhaps a little less so, but still a tool designed largely for exploitation of resource rather than the creation of value. A shovel might if used with good stewardship contribute to the systemic energetic health– perhaps in the planting of an orchard. . .I think that very often we’re inclined to look to explanations that suit our preference and worldview, and that’s dangerous. I’m certain that it takes a lot less discipline to find oneself holding radical or extreme views than moderate ones– and unfortunately the truth is very often in the middle where it’s hardest to find.

We have and are killing 100s of billions or trillions of other mammals, birds, fish and such, we are a disgusting group.
We ARE not special.
What species has ever evolved to kill just about everything?

I’m less immediately inclined to blame civilization– as the existence of civilization is the only phenomenon on Earth that has the potentiality to extend the evolutionary heritage of the planet beyond the lifespan of its star. . .a civilization doesn’t necessarily cause systemic planetary collapse as that’s baked into the cake by the entropic reality of the universe– it might hasten it for sure, as it appears we’re doing, but I don’t think it’s impossible in some cases it might forestall it as well. Perhaps that’s a moot point but biologic systems at all levels tend to create seedburst moments, and for all the world on the planetary scale it appears we’re really in one–but again I don’t think it’s impossible that if we’d gone about civilization a bit differently then things might have unfolded in another manner.

If we”re going to the root, it’s Homo sapiens and our intelligence that allowed us to develop industrial civilisation.Ernst Mayr stated that intelligence is a lethal mutation.This century will no doubt prove him correct.

The NZ ‘lifeboat’ is already grossly overfilled. And people are already starting to flee to NZ in large numbers as it all turns to custard elsewhere.

No one is sure how many Maori lived here before European started arriving by the boatload but a reasonable estimate is 200,000. And they managed to exterminate several large land species in the quest for food before the population stabilised via intertribal warfare.

Admittedly, Maori did not practice intensive organic food production, so theoretically NZ could support rather more than 200,000 humans ‘sustainably’.

In the semi-remote region I live in, it may be possible to prevent a massive die-off in the short term. That may depend on blowing up access bridges and allowing nature to block gorges etc. to prevent hordes arriving from elsewhere. However, the NZ government and local council are doing everything they can to ensure there will be a massive die-off by squandering as much resource as possible on infrastructure which will have no utility in the future and will reduce the carrying capacity of the land. It’s called ‘sustainable development’.

david higham Says:
August 5th, 2014 at 2:17 pm
If we”re going to the root, it’s Homo sapiens and our intelligence that allowed us to develop industrial civilisation.Ernst Mayr stated that intelligence is a lethal mutation.This century will no doubt prove him correct

Granted, HS intelligence was a factor but it isnt the “root”. How else to explain the fact that at it’s inception, civilisation (not Ind Civ) was certainly a minority effort and was and still is rejected by many intelligent non civilised HS. In this regard I feel Mayr is very wide of the mark. It isnt intelligence that leads to the development of Ind Civ but a LACK of intelligence imo.

The book’s premise sets the stage for a series of “die-offs”. The first takes place within a week (those in hospitals and assisted living). After about 15 days, salmonella-induced typhoid fever and cholera set in from eating tainted food, drinking tainted water, and generally poor sanitation. Americans have lived in an environment of easy hygiene, sterilization, and antibiotics, making them prime targets for third-world diseases. The lack of bathing and poor diet led to rampant feminine hygiene infections; deep cuts, rusty nail punctures, and dog bites went untreated with antibiotics, tetanus shots, or rabies treatment as many more die from common infections.

Thieves of critical medical supplies and food are executed in public as enforcement of martial law. In 30 days, cardiac and other drug-dependent patients begin to die off. In 60 or so days, the pacemaker and Type I diabetics patients start to fail (although John’s young daughter manages to survive until Day 131). The 6% of population having severe psychotic disorders that no longer have medication re-create bedlam. Makeshift wood-burning stoves lead to carbon monoxide deaths and fires that cannot be controlled due to the lack of a fire department.

Then, refugees from the cities show up looking for food and shelter and the fight over scarce resources leads to confrontation, home invasion, and more violence-related die-offs. The community becomes an inviting target for escaped prisoners and organized gangs and more violence-related die-off. Ration cards are issued to conserve the little remaining food; regardless, the community slowly starves, with the elderly the first to die off. Next, parents starve themselves to save their children. Throughout this period suicides are common. After a year, approximately 20% of the initial population has “survived”.

The “average” die-off for the country was 90% leaving 30 million surviving out of original 300 million US population. The food-rich Midwest had the highest survival rate with a 50% die-off. New York City and Florida had a 95% die-off from infighting among their large populations, low levels of cultivated land, high elderly population, a lack of air conditioning, rampant transmission of disease, and natural disasters such as hurricanes.

Question Four is based upon a false premise, that there will time to sit around and mark on excel sheets the declining population. That’s not going to happen. When collapse, (which we’re experiencing now), turns into a crash no one is going to be keeping tabs on anyone else. Communication, along with the power grid are going down and no one will have computers or internet access to see what’s going elsewhere, including the neighboring town. It will all be Here and Now for everyone and as the food runs out, it rapidly won’t matter.

“How many human deaths per year will occur between now and extinction in 2030 or so? Or perhaps asked in another way: What will be the net human population alive per continent at the end of each year from 2015 to 2030? The support for the numbers would obviously have to include some analysis of the causes of the population decline per period and maybe that can be worked into the question.”

To say that any answer to this question would be highly speculative is perhaps the understatement of the year. There really is no real objective data on which to base any answer to this question, as far as I know.

I think you can make some intelligent guesses, but they depend on what your assumptions are. For instance, does one assume that at some point (not sure when) that industrial civilization fails by loss of the electrical power grid? If so, then perhaps the “One Second After” scenario has some validity.

But if fossil fuel power and nukes can keep the grid up for say, twenty more years, somehow, then it’s a completely different equation. As Dr. McPherson points out, climate change will ravage the interior of this continent (forgive me, but I’m not awfully worried about other continents). Heat will be a killer, but it might be lack of water that kills the quickest.

Where I am, in central Texas, we get about 34 inches of rainfall on average. But it’s already been nearly ten years since we had a wet year. The teacher who taught me permaculture made the case that we could get by okay, meaning we could grow adequate food, on about half the historical average amount of rainfall. Less than that, and we’re toast, without being able to get food from somewhere else. So when rainfall gets down below 15-20 inches annually, even the best prepared survivalists won’t last long.

The one thing I know for sure is that people who try to predict the future are wrong more often than they’re right. I don’t see much use in trying to put a short term timeline on climate related extinction. It’s easy enough to see the big picture. The details will become clear soon enough.

My guess is that there will be time enough to see some major demographic shifts as people move around to try to cope with vanishing habitat. Lots of nomadic movement, perhaps eventually on foot. Some places will be better than others, for a while. For a year or two, maybe five.

Canadians will have to fight off US refugee “wetbacks” trying to cross the Detroit River maybe. How would that be for irony? Maybe American “boat people” squatting up on the fjords in BC. Not much telling, really. It’ll no doubt be chaos on a grand scale.

Or maybe it’ll hit so fast and so hard there won’t be time for that. Maybe we’ll all starve in one bad season.

It’s so surreal, at this point, to consider these scenarios, isn’t it? For some of us, fat and happy here in the heart of the empire, our lives couldn’t be much better at the moment. That’s what makes it so easy to go into denial mode. It’s definitely the path of least resistance. I understand why people stick their heads in the sand.

i’m listening to the radio show and will attempt an answer to question #4. I bookmarked generation alpha’s blog to check out later.

As pat will attest, i’m on board as saying that it’ll be beyond obvious that we’re on our way out by 2019 and that no one will make it through the 2020’s.

It’s just my opinion, but the way things are going, I may have indulged in wishful thinking. Methane wasn’t anywhere near as big a deal as it is now when I made my guess.

Not only has Fukushima gotten worse (and I don’t believe it can be brought under human control now) others around the world are also beginning to crash. The bill for “properly” decommissioning just one shut down plant – the San Onofre nuke plant – is supposed to take 2 decades (beginning in a year or two) and the bill has been stated to be $4.4 billion. [Since our watch-dog regulation agencies are ineffective and corrupted, what can we reasonably expect?]

This when the government is broke, the dollar is losing value and becoming obsolete as the world’s currency, the global banking system is awash in bad paper that will blow them up (and the world economy with it) any year now. Like with methane release, we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Diseases are ramping up all over the place: we hear about the “out of control” ebola virus spreading throughout Africa (and now HERE in the U.S.), but there are many others – chikungunya, tick and mosquito borne diseases, animal attacks (including sharks, coyotes, and even people’s pets are turning on their owners or families), and others – all compounded by a failing (unaffordable) health-care system.

People have no conception of rapid climate change because our entire life and that of everyone who we’ve ever known or even read about – our entire human history – has been based on a predictable climate. We’ve been living in a dream world!

Great show Guy and Mike! You made me laugh out loud with “doomer of the week.”

But of course the “we” can, if the “we” is more advanced than a Kardashev Type I civilisation. They will have to be capable of making at least a partial Dyson sphere, to harness energy in excess if that incident from their home star on their home planet: the excess will be directed to the partial diversion away from their home planet of energy incident on their home planet.

“How can one live a “life of excellence” while participating in Industrial Civilization? I don’t get it.”

“Render that which is Caesar’s unto Caesar, and that which is God’s unto God”.

With the caveat that ultimately, when “I” and the “not-I” cede any pretence to reality, then “Caesar” and “God”, both being part of the “not-I”, also cede all pretence to reality. That realisation is the sine qua non of excellence. When short of that realisation, excellence constitutes striving toward that realisation.

“could you say if this is good news:
…
Climate change can not be prevented, but we can adapt to it.”

The extent of change dictated by the adaptations required and the time available achieve that change, determine the success or otherwise of the adaptations.

There are two kinds of adaptation. Biological adaptation proceeds at the pace of evolution. Over time, the descendants of fish adapted to swinging from branch to branch in a forest. The other adaptation is cultural & technological. This proceeds best when NET energy is ample. As NET energy becomes more constrained, cultural and technological adaptation progressively becomes more problematic, and its problems become acute once the NET energy cliff is reached. One should Google “net energy cliff” if needed, to familiarise oneself with the concept.

“Assume you could have been born at any time in history. Would you have chosen to be born into this life you have now, or would you have deliberately chosen to be born at some earlier time?”

That question arises from identification with the meat-robot. How about a different meat-robot, an elephant or an octopus? Once identification with the meat-robot ceases, consciousness is not misconstrued to be a possession. One is not one’s possessions. Consciousness, by that criterion, is not one’s possession. The Knower is not the known. An abstraction of the knower, forming a concept that can be handled by the mind, is known, and is mistaken for the Knower.

I like the way you think. Those moderate views are hard to find, while I find myself leaning more towards them. Thanks.

Pure spam bot. Untouched by human brain cells.

@ Samudrala

..a species evolving to kill everything are certain species of virus.

Eh ? Citation ?

@ Shep

I cannot understand verbosity.

That does not make grammatical sense. It is not a logical construct.

Common Sense trumps all.

Define ‘Common Sense’. Trouble is, what people frequently claim to be common sense so often turns out, on closer inspection, to be totally incorrect. Science has demonstrated that much of what it demonstrably true is counter-intuitive.

Many times, education leads to arrogance and blindness.

Humans are flawed in many ways, you have a cure ? Are you suggesting a lack of education is beneficial ?

Read any revised hx. lately?

Sorry, I don’t understand that.

What if u are educated by misinformed people?

Yes, what if ? How would you approach that possibility so as to minimise the chance ?

We have often discussed the possible causes of NTE, loss of food, etc, due to this and that.

I submit that all those concerns are now superceded by the prospect of war. I think this is the most dangerous time since the Kennedy – Kruschev Cuban Missile Crisis. We have not yet reached that degree of tension, but each day that passes the situation is escalating and the probability of nuclear (and other all-out warfare) increases, rather than stabilising or decreasing.

In the event of a global war, it will not be a lengthy drawn out affair. It will all be over very quickly.

Regarding death tolls and population levels, as I understand it, all the major cities are targetted, as are all significant industrial and military installations. So a rough estimate means more than half the human population goes, more or less instantly, and most of the rest over the next weeks and months.

You then have the nuclear winter scenario, and the radio active fallout scenario and the melting down Fukes scenario…

“Though death is an inevitable part of life, do we really act as if we know we’re going to die? In a culture that glorifies youth and technology, the true acknowledgement of death can come as an affront to our perceived ability to negotiate with limits. Can we each acknowledge the role of death in our lives to create a wiser life, throughout and at its end?

Stephen Jenkinson returns in Extraenvironmentalist #80 to discuss the wisdom that death can bring to our distaste of limits. Then, we talk to hospice nurse Meg Smith about the epidemic of cognitive impairment among the elderly and speak with Caitlin Doughty of the Order of the Good Death about alternative death rituals.”

I think it is rather silly to be talking of deaths per year when we have numerous non-linear factors determining ‘our’ future.

With all the discussion about climate, ‘everyone’ seems to have forgotten that the net liquid energy cliff is forecast to start impacting very severely from 2016 onwards, rather messing up current food production and distribution systems, don’t you know>.

In the latest ‘Keiser Report’ Max and Stacy discuss the fact that there is no profit to be made from fracking in the US. And I note that oil prices have declined (been pushed down?) in recent days. Signs of economic-financial implosion soon are there for everyone with a brain to see. The big crunch could well come around January, when Europe will supposedly be functioning without the normal supplies of Russian gas.

I must say I am glad I moved [many years ago, since I had a fair idea what was coming] to a location where one can survive reasonably well without heating or cooling.

@ulvfugl

I am still of the opinion that most of the war drums we are hearing are being beaten purely for domestic consumption, with a view to persuading Americans that the US is still capable of fighting a war. After all, we heard about an ‘imminent’ attack on Iran every few months from 2004 to 2012, and nothing happened.

I’m sure death-by-a-thousand-cuts suits the sociopaths who run the system much better than 3-hour-vaporisation.

In answer to NTHE question 4: The truth is know one knows how many deaths there will be for each year leading up to extinction, it is pure guess work and speculation. The number of deaths depends on so many factors, IC collapse, or lack of IC collapse, war, or lack of war, the extent of climate chaos and change or lack of change, biological weapons, viruses and diseases? Food and water scarcity or the lack thereof.

In truth and honesty we just don’t know how the future will unfold and know one knows 100% and that is the truth. People like to think that they know because it gives them a sense of certainty. But the honest truth is no one, I mean, NO ONE knows how things will play out, and if they say they know they are full of shit and trying to make themselves look smarter than they are.

All the climate models have been wrong, we are dealing with an extremely complicated biosphere, and predictions are unreliable at best, and at worst can be dangerous and damaging to those that put to much faith and belief in them.

@Kevin

[i]I am still of the opinion that most of the war drums we are hearing are being beaten purely for domestic consumption, with a view to persuading Americans that the US is still capable of fighting a war. After all, we heard about an ‘imminent’ attack on Iran every few months from 2004 to 2012, and nothing happened.

I’m sure death-by-a-thousand-cuts suits the sociopaths who run the system much better than 3-hour-vaporisation.[/i]

Totally agree Kevin.

What a lot of people seem to overlook in their assessments of collapse scenarios or war scenarios, is peoples will to live and survive. An extreme amount of time and effort has gone into establishing the social systems we live under and everybody from the lowly mortgage slave to the so called elites are totally enmeshed and dependent on the system for every aspect of their lives, they will not give it up. To give it up mean certain death, no one with any modicum of hope will choose certain death. Never underestimate the lengths that the people in power will go to, to keep the system running and to keep their power and wealth and to keep their lives, NO ONE wants a nuclear bomb dropped on them, even if they are in a bunker. You have really fucked up and pissed off too many powerful people if they are willing to drop a nuke on you and in doing so know they will get nuked back. The people in power may be mad but they are not totally without sense and they value self-preservation and will not do anything they think will endanger their self-preservation, they like the power and prestige too much and don’t want to do anything that could get them nuked, imo.

I have been pleasantly surprised for the last 6 years that the system has not crashed or collapsed, during that time I thought that collapse was imminent, 6 years later, it’s business as usual.

And never forget that when we are talking about a financial collapse it must be remembered that it is in NO ONES interest to have the system collapse, and virtually everyone will do anything in their power to keep the system afloat. Remember that the monetary system is a make believe system, it’s impossible to run out of money in a fiat system as the people in power just print as much is needed to keep things ticking over. Financial collapse is extremely unlikely to happen, imo, and if it does happen it will have been planned by powerful people with the aim of collapse being to consolidate and expand their power.

As Kevin alluded to the USA is built on the military industrial complex, they keep the war drums beating as it’s good for business, but Russia or China Nuking the USA is very bad for business and for ones health, so it’s highly unlikely to happen.

As an aside, I listened to someone interviewed a few weeks ago who does a lot of research into chemtrails and geo-engineering, he said that most of the chemtril planes have been sent to the Arctic to try to reduce the summer melt, don’t know if what he said is true, but if it is it could be why there has not been as much melt this year as people predicted.

Ulvfugl says: “I submit that all those concerns are now superceded by the prospect of war. I think this is the most dangerous time since the Kennedy – Kruschev Cuban Missile Crisis. We have not yet reached that degree of tension, but each day that passes the situation is escalating and the probability of nuclear (and other all-out warfare) increases, rather than stabilising or decreasing.”

No one, not even the most crazed, death cult Christian knuckle dragger in the US wants to have a nuclear war. A war that ruins Europe and Russia? You bet. But that can all be accomplished without any nukes.

Keep in mind that the US has proudly demonstrated to the world that it is unable to subdue completely out-gunned, out-spent, out-manned Third World countries. The US excels as an arms dealer, falls down face first as an army. Sure, the US can bomb the living shit out anyone, but it has been known since the middle of WW2 that bombing raids without troop occupation are pretty much useless in defeating a country.

The Ukrainian gambit to suck Russia into an unending war and to bankrupt it as well as badly damage Europe appears to have failed.
Russia won’t take the bait and simply by waiting, the Right Sektor thugs in Kiev grow weaker by the minute. US sanctions against Russia have neatly backfired and made US economic muscle even weaker.

War will certainly become more likely as food and water run low, (Canada will likely be invaded by a desperate US when things get seriously rotten) but the current mess going on now isn’t going to escalate much further — unless the Ukrainian/Polish air force starts bombing Moscow.

Ram
I am unaware of ANY virus or bacteria that destroys all life leaving only extremophiles. Enlighten me if you will. I know of the many epidemics, and the few pandemics (debatable at that), but no case of complete world-wide destruction. I guess we are “special” in that way.

The above Wasdell videos provide the pressure that humanity must respond to in whatever way we “choose.” ulvfugl and others think war will be the big step down, many others see disease (ie. pandemic) and the deterioration of civilization into states of starvation, militarization and desperation from lack of food and water (not to mention the increasing air pollution from all sources, smokestacks and tailpipes to methane release and hydrogen sulfide events), and there are still more avenues to pursue, not least of which is that of our man-made radiation threat (ever on the increase).

Of course, we’re already seeing that it’s all of the above in fits and starts, but increasing all around – while our natural surroundings, the drivers, in essence, are doing the same with global ice melt, out of the ordinary heat & cold, drought, flood and storms, rapid climate change, vast fires, and the rest combine with the uptick in volcanic and earthquake activity.

In the end of Part II above, Dr. Wasdell claims that it’s time to act.
What action is an inept and inherently ignorant species likely to take that will improve the situation?

Thanks, Artleads. . .in a world where extremism seems to always rule the conversation to be a “moderate” is to adopt the position sure to piss off everyone. . .

If there’s anything I learned years ago from my time in bible school it was the stink of a disingenuous argument– and theology if it is anything is the technique of crafting an argument with a preconceived end in mind– which is generally some preferential prejudice with no basis in reality. This stunt isn’t the sole possession of theologians, of course, tho’ they’re masters of it– one can find the same techniques in almost all human conversations– and there’s plenty of that going on here. I’d have to say the the status quo for what passes for thinking is to simply posit one’s desired conclusion and to reverse engineer the rational from there. Once one reluctantly accepts that unfortunate reality about discourse, the most important question for a to ask of one’s peers in the attempt to understand has nothing really to do with whatever reasons might be offered, or what evidence might be presented– as these most often are pure props and special effects, and usually just accessory to the conversation anyway– but rather ask the question of “why one might want to think X”– or “what personal benefit is there in X”– to get a sense of the motivation for their choosing of their favorite “truth” over any others that might be available. Very often one can find a strong conflict of interest there and a solid personal gain to be had from believing that “truth” and one that’s apparent it’s best to just dismiss these theatrics for what they are. As one develops the ethics to pursue objectivity and move away from self-serving sophism the first “truth” one discovers is that “truth” is rarely convenient or comfortable– and if it “just so” happens to be, it’s a good cause to reconsider the evidence.

To be clear, I find the evidence supporting some kind of NTHE event pretty credible, and have for a long time– it was the major motivator to basically drop everything I was doing an move to Hawaii and put in my little ecological reserve. I appreciate Mcphersons commitment to personal responsibility in a very visceral way– as few people have the courage to proactively embrace knowledge and make it real through constructive action. Some of the rest of the message and some of the supporting evidence gets a little less compelling and by the time we get to the inevitable collapse of the 400 nuke plant meme it’s a bit strained. No matter, point taken. Where it gets ridiculous is with all the self-absorbed and all too conspicuously self serving stuff about “woe is me, it’s all over, nothing can be done– I’m going to sit on my porch and drink cocktails and watch the world end” stuff– as that’s obviously based on false premises and has a blatantly obvious agenda in it. I only persist in being a bit of a fly in the ointment around here as the wife and I are trying to decide what to do over the next couple of years—largely to make the decision of whether to expand the Hawaii project to involve some peers(if they actually exist) or to just hunker down and keep it small like it already is. We don’t know, but we intend to stick it out. . .the main question is simply how to do so in the most constructive manner we can. I’ve been fortunate over the years to acquire a pretty broad skillset and have a better chance of making a go of the future than many might– I recognize the responsibility that comes with a gift like that and hope to steward it as best as I’m able.

@jaywiftz NO sir, you are clueless about responsible behavior. Your very existence is supported by the destruction of the earth and not attempting to relieve the suffering of others that are being destroyed for your computer, etcetera only helps to exemplify your rank callousness. Your nauseously smug existence is an affront to all the suffering non-humans!

After 2 or 3 thousand years philosophers still cannot agree amongst themselves what philosophy actually IS, let alone about anything else…
However, imo, that’s not a good reason not to keep on doing it, in the sense of the definition ‘pursuit of wisdom’, because I think it’s an excellent thing to understand that there are definite limits to what can be understood, or to put it another way, that there is only so much that is knowable, and that we are immersed in some profound mystery which will always be beyond our comprehension.
If we took that insight more seriously, we might be more humble and grateful for the miracle that we have ?

What you said about human behavior being the main problem RIGHT NOW resonates with me, right or wrong.

Random Thoughts: There are a few ideas that are hard wired into my thinking, but most can and do change. Most people are like that(IMO). We can’t help influencing each other.

An extreme way of thinking is to say that people will eat each other rather than starve. I don’t consider myself to be very different from most, and eating people is something I have no intention of attempting. I believe that starving to death in the face of insurmountable odds is a good and honorable final act of living.

I don’t know what people will do in the future, and I don’t see how anybody can be sure.

I’m with Kevin and others who see demise in terms of a thousand cuts, and not in some grand conflagration.

The only guide I can imagine of what will happen tomorrow with the BAU or LAF (Life As Usual)is what has happened today. Part of moderated thinking ought to be to look in detail at what is happening all over today. That is extremely complex/complicated and difficult, and no one appears to be doing it adequately, if at all.

I feel that the dominant problem is that human beings have not sufficiently evolved beyond a behavior set based on “me first/right now” paradigm to embrace the “we/in perpetuity” paradigm that would be necessary to have insure any systemic stability. Intelligence is hardly the problem from that perspective, nor even civilization probably– as it seems likely that both if fact would be REQUIRED to provide the preexisting circumstances to take that next evolutionary step. But we haven’t, or at least most of us haven’t– and even in so called progressive circles the tendency to jump to the knee-jerk attitudes or actions or re-actions that most immediately service and satisfy that “me first/right now” hardwiring is everywhere. I find it depressing in the extreme here at NBL, among those who claim to have some kind of cognitive grip on where the world is headed and why, to still observe such a persistent “me first/right now” tendency to misconstrue, to jump immediately to take offense, to accuse, or to simply ignore the facts of the manner in an obvious attempt to preserve a “me first/right now” prejudice–a humane good faith is pretty underrepresented– and it’s very grim and hopeless indeed to see the same values that brought us to this apocalyptic moment so ubiquitously represented even here. . . Of course following “me first/right now” the “me” precludes the “we”(tho’ there’s definitely room for “me” in “we. . .”) and the end result is a race to the bottom and that bottom always ends up to be violence of some sort– whether against each other or against our relationship with reality– or even the integrity of our own minds as we can’t be bothered to think things that might not work with “me first/right now.” And that’s why I think it’s useful to reflect on whether our views about the nature of reality might have some self-serving bias– because there’s plenty enough wiggle room in the envelop of error for, again, “the truth to be bent a long way without breaking by the gentle pressure of wishing.”

And why I think violence will define the future. Why not? It defines the present. It always has.

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48 responses in 24 hours – Wow!
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I agree with the idea that “Civilization killed us.”
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Civilization had huge advantages in advancing personal and institutional security, in creating more goods and services, in opening up new ways of life. Because of the surplus, especially in manpower that it produced, a society which possessed it could almost always defeat one that did not. Once invented, there was no stopping its eventual spread to the rest of the world.
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Oh, here is the “miracle:”
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The evolution of life on our planet required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances. The odds of a protein forming on it’s own are greater than 10 to the 24th power, which is roughly the number of stars in the universe. Then factor in magnetospheres, plate tectonics, the chemistry of the lithosphere and atmosphere, “evolutionary pumps” such as massive glaciation and rare bolide impacts, Star metallicity, location in the galaxy (X-ray and gamma ray radiation from galactic center black holes, and from nearby neutron stars, excessive Gravitational perturbation of planets and planetesimals by dense concentration of stars near the center), the habitable zone, a continuously stable orbit, a stable star, axis tilt, velocity of rotation, etcetera…

re my earlier comment about Toba – I don’t refer to that event as any kind of evidence that we will survive what’s coming. It’s just shorthand for saying that we are a tough species that can cope with enormous hardship and will do everything in our power to survive, no matter the circumstances, no matter what the cost. I think the biosphere’s current state of ruin is sufficient evidence of our drive to survive.

How many deaths? when? How? I have no clue, and nobody else does either. All we’re doing here is trading beliefs. Predicting the specifics of something like this hints of a failure to appreciate the unpredictable nature of failures in complex systems.

I prefer to wait and watch. My own death will come sooner or later, one way or another. Yours will too.

Though death is an inevitable part of life, do we really act as if we know we’re going to die? In a culture that glorifies youth and technology, the true acknowledgement of death can come as an affront to our perceived ability to negotiate with limits. Can we each acknowledge the role of death in our lives to create a wiser life, throughout and at its end?

If anyone has any interest, I posted the following response to Scott Johnson’s claim that I have written in “sanctimonious” ways at Fractal Planet:

I would challenge you and any others who might read this to review the meaning of the word “sanctimonious”, as well as the nature of Baconian and Cartesian scientific philosophy (vs. the thinking and values inherent in modern physics, including complexity theory and nonequilibrium thermodynamics), and then to consider, or reconsider, who has actually written in ways that reflect sanctimonious thinking and values, here, and who has not.

Related to this, I find your willingness to focus on one or a few ecosystem variables, then to make positive statements regarding their alleged linear, causal influence, and then to make sweeping, presumably certain statements concerning the future behavior of Earth’s complex biosphere, including its allegedly “certain”, human-controlled reversibility, breathtaking. You obviously wish to continue civilization’s agenda of short-term domination and control of Earth. No doubt our corporate leaders greatly appreciate your enthusiastic, presumably unpaid support. It strikes me that we have an important, many centuries-old, cultural clash, here, between those of you who believe that we can, and supposedly should, dominate and control Earth, and those relatively few of us who believe that we cannot and should not continue those attempts. Clearly, to date the Cartesian nature-dominators have “won” in this clash. But complexity theory and nonequilibrium thermodynamics make it clear that you have won only a short-term, Pyrrhic victory. Of course, you do not wish to hear this sad story: nature bats last, not industrial capitalist technology strongly based on and supported by Baconian-Cartesian scientific fundamentalists and principles.

This is an intriguing question. On the one hand if we are going to go extinct in 16 years it would seem that population would already be declining, but it’s not. So what would cause all 7.2 billion human beings to die in such a short time? Guy’s theory that climate collapse will eliminate habitat for the human species is simply that, a theory. It’s possible that collapse of industrial civilization will cause global temps to immediately rise by 2C due to the lack of aerosols. And its possible that this will immediately result to no human habitat in the interior of large continents. But its all just theoretical, we have never experienced this before so we don’t know if this will happen. We have climate models that back it up and we have ice core data that show rapid climate changes in the past but we still don’t know for sure if rapid warming will cause all 7.2 billion humans to die in the near term. My guess is it won’t happen that fast but that’s just a guess.

What will kill a lot of people is a collapse that causes electric grids to go down and liquid fuels for transportation to become unavailable. This appears to be a lead pipe cinch to happen some time soon. My guess is >90% of the human population will be dead within a year after a wide spread collapse of the electric grid and liquid fuel delivery systems. This could happen any time but my best guess is around 2020. I also expect that many/most will have a hard time carrying on after such a traumatic event so millions will commit suicide.

So there you go, my prediction is >90% dieoff by 2020. But as for total extinction, it may take a couple of centuries to snuff out the last human. RE will finally get to practice his survival skills.

I’m with you, basically, observing that a 90 percent extinction event straight away makes survival possible for the remaining 10 percent, or at least gives them a fighting chance– and I’m sure that detail isn’t lost on those with the power to make it happen.

Instead of all the whining and premature predictions of the Earth’s demise, why not instead do SOMETHING to prevent the Sixth Mass Extinction. I just returned from Colombia where we were successful in preserving in perpetuity an additional 14,500 acres of lowland and cloud rain forest for $44,000. That’s right……..for a minimal investment and much ingenuity we were able to conserve a tremendous amount of habitat.

The contributors to this site are highly intelligent people- people a hell of a lot smarter than am I. Why not use this brilliant brainpower to save the planet?

@P. Chefurka: You have come closest to an answer to Question 4. I also believe that you have the skills (given your previous work and posts) to refine your speculation of 450 million net deaths per year for the next 16 years to a rate that is fewer from now until 2020 with an acceleration to 2035 – your ramp comment. If you have time for the mental gymnastics, I would really like to see your best guesstimate of those alive at the end of each year 2015 to 2035 and some commentary on where the mass deaths will take place and what are the major causes. I know it’s a daunting request, but I encourage you to give it a go. There was a population geographer (Dr. Gary L. Peters) that used to comment of many the collapse blogs that probably would have gladly helped you, but unfortunately he died two years ago. Jay Hansen would be another good collaborator.

Friedrich King says: “I just returned from Colombia where we were successful in preserving in perpetuity an additional 14,500 acres of lowland and cloud rain forest for $44,000.”

In perpetuity!!! man, I couldn’t find the clip on youtube, but it’s from Little Big Man.

“We were given the land for as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and the wind blows…..

“But some days, the sky isn’t blue, the grass isn’t green and the wind isn’t blowing.”

Better yet if King had said that he spent $44,000 to protect some wilderness until mineral or lumber or water needs reclaim it for the “good of the economy.”

Every wonder what the native Americans felt like when the white man was gobbling up land? More and more US, Canadian and Mexican citizens are finding out first hand. Wake me up when the shooting starts.

“posit one’s desired conclusion and to reverse engineer the rational from there.”

The boss (the reptilian brain) is non-rational, non-verbal, associated with emotions (short-term) and values (long-term), morals (right or wrong), ethics (good or bad) and aesthetics (beautiful or ugly). It is in the back seat, it decides the “why” and tells the chauffeur where to go.

The chauffeur (the mammalian & monkey brain) is associated with rationality, intelligence and speech. It decides what to do and how to do it to get to where the boss directs. Both the boss and the chauffeur are aspects of the meat-robot.

The boss can be reprogrammed through repeated by appeals to values and emotions, with the presentation of ideas or statements, as Joseph Goebbels noted and practiced. This is thaumaturgy, reprogramming the meat-robot. It can be used for good as well

It is quite another matter to recognise the meat-robot for a meat-robot, with an end to its confusion with conscious awareness. The way to promote that recognition is theurgy. There are many ways to it, whether it be “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”, or something more esoteric such as “chitta vritti nirodha”.

“miracle? what miracle?”

Everything can be explained away / swept aside by the Anthropic Principle if only one miracle is granted, as pointed out by Terence McKenna: The Big Bang. Not enormous, not huge, not gigantic, etc. – just Big.

“human beings have not sufficiently evolved beyond a behavior set based on “me first/right now” paradigm to embrace the “we/in perpetuity” paradigm”

Humans have evolved to quasi-sociality, as have other social mammals. A notable exception is the naked mole rat, which approaches eusociality.

Some species of hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) and termites have achieved eusociality, but they are lacking in the oxygen delivery systems (haemoglobin, corpuscular haemoglobin, circulation, respiratory gas exchange) necessary for an adequate body size and a large enough brain to serve as a platform for a mind with a human level of intelligence.

“There was a population geographer (Dr. Gary L. Peters) that used to comment of many the collapse blogs”

OK, here you go. Remember that this is a purely mathematical exercise, with no theoretical underpinning.

The technique:

I kept the crude birth rate constant at the current rate of 2%.
The crude death rate starts off at the current rate of about .8%.
Each year the rate increases by 40%.
The multiplier of 40% is chosen empirically to give a world population of 0 at the end of 2030.

Four years have more than a billion deaths per year (over 100 times the WWII death rate), but they come near the end of the dieoff.

There is no way to predict the shape of the curve. It all depends on what kind of shit hits the fan and when.

To provide some context, my article on sustainability from last year estimates that a truly sustainable global population is around 35 million. You can see from the numbers just how close that is to zero given our current population. But it’s more people than existed on the planet until about 3000 BCE – 5,000 years into the agricultural revolution.

To be absolutely clear, I do not think that 100% extinction within 15 years has more than a 1% or 2% probability.

Thanks so much for the wonderful audio link to Dying Wisdom with its reference to the 1 hr, 25 min, award winning video Flight From Death, available free here at Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/173530. Definitely a must-see in my opinion, which, I think, goes a long way toward explaining a lot of the hostility toward Guy and his message as well as many other human behaviors.

“I feel that the dominant problem is that human beings have not sufficiently evolved beyond a behavior set based on “me first/right now” paradigm to embrace the “we/in perpetuity” paradigm that would be necessary to have insure any systemic stability”

I know you expressed this as a feeling, but I want to look at it as a proposition if that’s ok?

‘Me First/Right Now’ has always been in the human scope of behavior since leaving the trees, but, IMHO, only a small percentage of adults have gotten away with it for a lifetime. Most adults, esp prehistory, relied on co-operative family/clan/tribal groups and me first was not an exclusive trait, even for chieftains – who had to negotiate with peers and do all types of reciprocation with neighbors.
What we are seeing right now is an apex of a process that started when elders were exterminated, and adolescence was rewarded by big capital, via advertising to the group most flush with cash – and – able to be influenced by welding a product to a primary instinctual drive.
That apex is characterised by a huge population walking the planet with a dominant attitude of adolescence.
It was not always so, and ‘our species’ has all the range of capacities.

You might be interested in looking at “Black Elk Speaks”, which tells of the shamanic vision the Native American Shaman Black Elk had as a 9 year old boy .

He concludes that the world process of cultural destruction and genocide has a greater purpose, and this did not mitigate his horror, but in his wisdom it let him understand a greater cycle was unfolding.

I will probably cop some flak for saying that but hey, WTF do I care about that?

Oh, as to causes – my top candidate is infectious disease, followed in descending order by starvation, dehydration and violence. There may well be massive wars in that period, but I don’t think even a thermonuclear war has the ability to kill this number of people directly. Starvation caused by a prolonged nuclear winter would definitely help things along, though.

Where will the mass deaths take place? Everywhere. Given a 15-year extinction scenario, the question is irrelevant.

[i]”Instead of all the whining and premature predictions of the Earth’s demise, why not instead do SOMETHING to prevent the Sixth Mass Extinction. I just returned from Colombia where we were successful in preserving in perpetuity an additional 14,500 acres of lowland and cloud rain forest for $44,000. That’s right……..for a minimal investment and much ingenuity we were able to conserve a tremendous amount of habitat.

The contributors to this site are highly intelligent people- people a hell of a lot smarter than am I. Why not use this brilliant brainpower to save the planet?”[/i]

@Friedrichkling

You are right there are many highly intelligent people who read and post on NBL, and their intelligence tells them that it is too late to do anything to save the planet.

400+ nuclear power plants ready to meltdown, 800+ offshore oil and gas rigs that will probably cause huge environmental damage if they have to be abandoned quickly. If they don’t cause problems now they will in a hundred years when the sea reclaims them. Then there are 140+ nuclear powered ships and submarines that will most probably not be safely decommissioned and will cause mass pollution and environmental devastation. Add to that all the self reinforcing feedbacks in Guy’s climate summery and it does not look like anything will, or can be saved.

And even if we still had the time to change and NTE was not an almost certainty it is virtually impossible for any of us NBL people to make any meaning full contribution. Remember Al Gore, sure you do, he made a movie about climate change and got a lot of people talking, did it make any difference to carbon output. Of course it didn’t. We are an addicted species and our addiction will kill us and take many innocent life forms with us.

And yes some of us lament this ugly truth of NTE, if you think it is whining, think again. It is in fact a deep profound grief and sadness over the loss of the beautiful magical biosphere and all the millions of life forms that will be seeing an early extinction thanks to humanities folly. You seem like you have not fully come to terms with NTE which is fine there is no rush. It’s just that many people on NBL have come to terms with NTE and it’s truly heart breaking and devastating. For some hear it’s an intellectual game, theorising over how many people will die by such and such a date, this is cold intellect, but if people want to think about that it’s fine. For me that is meaningless speculation and lacks heart, who the fuck cares how many will have died by such and such date? If we go extinct by 2030 or 2100 it does not really make much difference. It may make a big difference to our personal lives, but in the big picture it is irrelevant, imo. The relevant thing is we are going extinct and it’s going to happen in one or two generations, which is very fast and devastating.

In my mind NTE is a 95% certainty. To me near term could be anything up to 200 years. I very much doubt we will all be extinct by 2030, but I don’t rule it out, but I also don’t rule out that we could have 8 billion people on the planet by 2030. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure we are fucking this planet up and one day, don’t know what day, but one day it will be unliveable for us and our premature extinction is guaranteed by our collective stupidity and addiction to energy and the capitalistic unlimited growth paradigm.

And as far as paying to save the rainforest goes, it sounds like a good idea but the truth is the people in power can decide at some point that they want the wood or land they will take the land and you will have no recourse or refund. They are the law.

A friend told me about a English guy who made a documentary about how he brought a lot of land in the Amazon rainforest, he thought he was safeguarding the rainforest and protecting the trees. Anyway long story short some local people decided they wanted the trees so they could make some money by selling them, they started to cut them down, the guy who brought the land went to try to stop them, and the locals basically told him to fuck off or they would kill him and bury him in the jungle. Nothing is safe when you have people with guns who are willing to kill you for what you have.

Ebola Deaths Go Exponential; Nigeria Demands Experimental Drug From US, Saudi Death First In Arab World

The official Ebola death toll is now at 932 with over 1,700 reported cases but as the WHO reports, in the last 48 hours, deaths and cases have exploded (48 and 108 respectively). As the charts below show, this epidemic is going exponential. What is perhaps most worrisome is, while playing down the threat in Nigeria (most especially Lagos – which the CDC Director is “deeply concerned” about), officials have formally asked the US for the experimental Ebola drug, which suggest things are far worse than the 3 deaths reported so far in Nigeria would suggest. Finally, as we warned yesterday, Saudi Arabia is suffering too as the main who was hospitalized yesterday with symptoms has died – the first reported casualty in the Arab world.

[read the rest]

In the meantime they have two people in Atlanta, one in Ohio and one in NY suspected of having contracted ebola “somehow”. Allow me to show you how:

Several Britons quarantined for Ebola amidst claims the virus may be airborne

August 2014 – UNITED KINGDOM – Several British nationals have been voluntarily quarantined with suspected Ebola, according to the Daily Telegraph. The admission came from public health officials and follows revelations an individual in Cardiff had expressed fears they had contracted the disease. The exact number of people quarantined and their exact location have not been confirmed, but they are believed to be spread across the UK. The problem faced by public health authorities is that tests for Ebola are ineffective until the patients show symptoms. This means that they have to wait up to 21 days, which is the maximum incubation period. The World Health Organization has also claimed that the virus is spreading faster than they can control. This may be because of a misunderstanding about how the virus is transmitted; in 2012 a study suggested that Ebola may be transmitted through the air. Whilst the study was not conclusive the BBC reported that Canadian scientists had found that Ebola had been transmitted between animals that had never come into direct contact. This suggests that the current theory that it is only transmitted by exchange of bodily fluids may be wrong. However it is known that the individual in Cardiff has been confined to their home for the past week, after they returned from West Africa. The person visited West Africa where more than 1,600 people have been infected with the virus in recent months, resulting in 887 deaths. Public Health Wales said the person is “currently staying away from work and limiting contact with other people voluntarily.” A health official admitted there were “several cases” across the UK, but stressed the quarantines were purely a precaution as none of them had developed any symptoms of Ebola. [there’s a little more]

The meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s third reactor building was even worse than initially believed, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced.

In fact, the power company’s new appraisal of the Fukushima No. 3 reactor building shows that all – or nearly all – of the fuel rods contained inside were melted, dropping onto the floor of the containment vessel. If true, the news means the power plant could be even tougher to decommission. [read the rest]

So that’s how clickin’ a little around scientific websites can debunk the chicken littles of Leftist Doomers who have sunk into a fundamentalist faith of apocalypse worse than the Rapture Ready freaks.

Looks like there will be no End Times Tribulation. That disappoints more than a few of you. Do reflect on why that is.

There was a Roman writer, I forget which one, who commented that when adults start behaving like children, society is lost (or something like that).
No doubt somebody here will remember better than me (I hope).

And dear people here, does a timeline and the number of human deaths where and when really matter? Almost or all life forms as we know them will become extinct! Therefore IMO, a numbers’ game is an idle pursuit, as is North and South and who or what essential to human survival might last a little bit longer.

But this is the beach of doom, and people can say what they like – and so everybody should.

I will stay where I am because I know and love this place well. But then who am I to talk, am pretty old anyway, and I want to face what I have to here, on my ground, where my heart can connect to the non-human life I’ve been familiar with since I was a child (while it’s still around). I also want to grieve for it when I need to.

But do what you feel you should. There’s no right and wrong. As with everything, it’s a very personal decision.

@Tom, while diseases like Ebola are fashionable and suitably scary, I’d put my money on more mundane heavy lifters like typhoid, dysentery and influenza. Also, if the Russian and Ukrainian collapse experiences are any guide, cirrhosis or outright alcohol poisoning could also feature prominently.

The leading cause of death is going to vary a lot, year by year and place to place. In some years/places it could be war, in others infectious diseases, in others starvation. Towards the end, suicide and personal violence could become de-growth industries – Number 1 with a bullet, so to speak.

My apologies to Robin Datta. I should have written thanks to him for posting the Dying Wisdom link first, which Apneaman appears to have referred to later. Also, I made an error regarding the video, Flight From Death, link source. It came from an Amazon review of Becker’s book, The Denial of Death. Also, Robin let me know that one will need a Hulu Plus account to view the video at Hulu. The audio and video strike me as extremely important, thought provoking stuff. Thanks again Robin and Apneaman!

Why fuss about the flower’s bloom? Too much focus on the peak, neglecting the beauty of the trough. Exalting inhalation while uninspired over exhalation. With a sigh the night comes, sweeping away petals that raptured in the sun. They fall into the dark brook and float away.

…my top candidate is infectious disease, followed in descending order by starvation, dehydration and violence. There may well be massive wars in that period, but I don’t think even a thermonuclear war has the ability to kill this number of people directly. Starvation caused by a prolonged nuclear winter would definitely help things along, though.

My very rough guesstimate is that all-out war between NATO and Russia, joined by China, with a nuclear grand finale, kills around 40% more or less, over a very short time (days, weeks) and then the following causes you mention take away most of the rest, right down to the sort of levels that would be sustainable, by foraging, if it were not for the Fukes, etc.

My feeling as to the likelihood of such all-out war, yesterday, was around the 6 mark, with 10 being the ‘Press the buttons to launch’ mark. But I think I move that to 6.5 or even 7 today.

Washington, London, Brussels and NATO are full of incompetent reckless ignorant lunatics and criminals.

Paul, thank you for the death rate analysis. I especially liked the graphical presentation. Tom F’s comment on August 6th that we would have 90% die-off after the grid collapses in 2020 of so has some logic behind it. The Black Plague took less than 10 years to wipe out 200 million. With public health so dependent on the gird, it’s loss with 7 billion of us (most in cities) could easily trigger a 3-4 billion die-off in just a year or two. Maybe Ebola will give us a clue. I also believe that the die-off in the Northern Hemisphere will go much faster than in the Souther due to nuclear war, ionizing radiation and loss of habit.

For some innate reason I have this desire to plot the extinction process on a year-by-year basis to zero and use the comments here to to help me formulate my own scenario. I will post it here when ready.

Kevin Moore and I despite both being doomers, disagree on N.Z.’s lifeboat status.
I live on 3.5 hectares,[about 7 acres]in South Canterbury. In the current climate and likely in a more chaotic one, totally focusing on growing food, and living tough and lean, I’m pretty sure I could survive on just one acre or less.
One quarter acre currently contains around 60 fruit, nut and berry trees/bushes and gardens that keep me in veges all year round, or nearly so. I have sheep, goats and poultry as well.
So how many acre lots are there [potentially] in N.Z.? N.Z. has a land area of about 27 million hectares, all but the highest bare rock mountains is capable of growing some sort of food for at least part of the year. The wild areas have so many possoms we airdrop 1080 to try and control them. Deer, pigs and goats a plenty too. I spent 4 months living under canvas, in the wilderness as a 19 year old, culling them to “save the forest”.
There are currently about 4.5 million people in N.Z., less without I.C.; you do the math.
What stops N.Z. from being the worlds best chance for lifeboat status? Nothing but politics, greed and stupidity.
Now who deserves to get that chance? Well that’s a whole different question.

I don’t think anyone will survive because this NTE event is going to be pretty complete. It will be the Venus effect that James Hansen tried to warn everyone about.

A new video by Jennifer Hynes released Aug 6, 2014 does an excellent job clearly explaining the science, the evidence and summarizes all the most recent events and how to interpret them:

Jennifer mentions a website:

http://www.caroylnbaker.net at the end of the presentation and Carolyn provides an eco-psychological perspective of how to deal with NTE.

From a spiritual perspective, each one of us knows we are going to die one day. The difference between knowing an NTE is inevitable and not is on the conceptual level and bothers us because we are conscious beings who can entertain those thoughts.

When we die, isn’t our own death a great extinction event in itself? All appearances are extinguished. What is the difference in EXPERIENCE between dying alone or dying collectively with billions of other people? There is no difference because our own personal death is still only ever a personal experience. Where the difference lay is in the experience of life before death.

It’s not going to be pleasant as we witness the earth system breaking down on an unimaginable geological scale. There will be a feeling of helplessness as if we are slowing being led to our death and watching many others dying around us. As one major social breaks down after another, we will be returned to a situation where the accumulated knowledge of millenia will be wiped out.

The system only works when there are many worker bees, each with their own specialized knowledge. Nobody knows how to do everything and that will be the challenge when the systems we all depend on are taken away from us rather rapidly. It will be a strange life indeed and I suspect a great deal of death will occur because nobody really knows how to take care of themselves anymore. That knowledge has been conditioned out of us as we have all been taught to be dependent on the system. When the system is gone, our survival will diminish rapidly.

Our natural instinct is to survive but given the hellish conditions that will persist, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to actually be around.

NTE forces us to come to terms with our life and death far sooner than we would like. But maybe that’s a good thing, to not have the luxury of time to while away the hours with unimportant things. Better to spend the little precious time we have seeking the true meaning of our short precious lives.

jaywfitz: I find it depressing in the extreme here at NBL, among those who claim to have some kind of cognitive grip on where the world is headed and why, to still observe such a persistent “me first/right now” tendency to misconstrue, to jump immediately to take offense, to accuse, or to simply ignore the facts of the manner in an obvious attempt to preserve a “me first/right now” prejudice–a humane good faith is pretty underrepresented– and it’s very grim and hopeless indeed to see the same values that brought us to this apocalyptic moment so ubiquitously represented even here.

Really? Unless you’re “tongue in cheek”.. all I have to say is 1880 is looking for you. Man and even more so “Christianity” and it’s endless need to conquer unknown horizons has caused more damage to our planet and Humankind than any other disease. I was raised a devout Catholic and grew up with a deep religious upbringing.. until I saw the damage that Religion has done to the world. I’m not sure if there is a God (I’m now waivering…) but I certainly would agree that God would NOT turn away those who are “social outcasts” (the poor, gays, lepers, mentally ill, drug users, prostitutes). That’s why I have no respect for “Christians.” They are the hypocrites and no nothing of the teachings of Christ. In the words of my beloved U.S. Representative Maxine Waters from California.. these Christians can go “straight to Hell.” Of course, she was talking about Tea Baggers. Anyhow, “No Tribulation”.. I hope you’re being sarcastic. If not… we’ll see who gets the short stick in the end. 😛

@NOTRIBULATION
Always interesting in seeing both sides. The DK site has an interesting daily anomalies chart… seems as thought there’s lots of red.

~~~

Reversion toward the mean is fascinating; as though everything gradually tends to slide towards the center of a cone, as if the existence was thus shaped.

@SABINE
“But this is the beach of doom, and people can say what they like – and so everybody should.” Love it.

@BENJAMINTHEDONKEY
Haha, a delight. And so true! Yes! Scathingly witty, brusque texts preferred, risque snapchat pix acceptable… anything beyond that an annoyance to one’s busy busy life breathlessly awaiting the next text. Am beginning to think it’s all in the anticipation. : )

Benjamin you inspire with poetry
am laughing while lamenting, ‘woe is me’
Beethoven was nice
Worth listening twice
Now all i say, let so it be. : )

As Always,
ApologiesForThat

~~~

It’s interesting to me as far as I can scan, there’s been little commenting on escaping to a secret location. Has that dream been shattered? I suppose it has for me… gone are my dreams of idyllic lives for my dear ones in the wine country of Chile, NZ, South Africa, AU. Could it be, there’s no place like home? Just wondering…

It’s very easy for a good sailor to make it from here to South America, but it’s a bitch to get back. Departing for the Southern Ocean is Plan B for me. I have lots of other strategies to try before I get to that one…but I won’t rule it out.

I still try to concentrate on the things I think make transition easier, even in the face of doom. Making my own power, collecting rainwater, cutting my dependency on the fiat currency, and growing my own food.

And before I go south, it might be perfectly reasonable to go north…just not as a permanent destination. When the time comes to become nomadic, there will be no real permanent destinations anymore, I don’t think.